Formula 1 releases its iOS, Android, BlackBerry apps for the 2012 season

Formula 1 has released updated mobile apps for the 2012 season, now available …

Regular readers will probably know that I'm Ars Technica's resident racing nerd. Actually going racing is about as much fun as you can have with your (nomex) clothes on, but it's not exactly the cheapest hobby in the world. But watching other people zoom round and round in circles provides enough of a fix to make NASCAR the US' largest spectator sport, the 24 Hours of Le Mans the world's biggest sporting event, and the Formula 1 (F1) season the most viewed sport on TV after the Olympics. F1 has been adapting to our ever more digital lifestyle, first by offering live timing and scoring via the Web, and more recently with mobile apps. Now, they've just released their latest version for the 2012 season, just in time for the first race taking place this coming weekend.

The app is available in two flavors, a free version that gives you news feeds, countdowns, and notifications for the races, and a paid version ($28.99 in the US iTunes App Store) that gives you access to live timing and scoring, real-time track positioning, and lap-by-lap text commentary and notifications. You can also pause races and download a complete race after the event.

That last feature is a real boon to those of us who timeshift the more inconveniently scheduled races; F1 is a global sport, but its biggest market is Europe, so most of the races end up being on very early in the morning if you're in the US. Being able to download the data for a race means you can still use the app even as you watch the race on your DVR.

No, it's not the cheapest app out there. And yes, if all you want is live timing, you can get that for free on F1's website. But if you're planning on attending an F1 race this year, having all that data at your fingertips at the track is incredibly handy, and at less than $30, it's quite a lot cheaper than renting a FanVision. Android and BlackBerry users will be glad to know that they're no longer neglected, with versions for those platforms also available.

37 Reader Comments

This seems awesome, especially the time-shifted race data. Can you confirm whether the app can let you start the time-shifted data without giving away the results of the race when you launch the app?

For example, you wake up on a Sunday morning and decide to watch the DVR'd race from earlier. You launch the app and voilá the race spoilers (heh) are right there in front of you! Sure, I'll watch the race, but it's not the same when you know who wins.

Yes, no spoilers. When you launch it after a race it asks if you want to download that session, then starts it from the beginning. I time-shift most of the races and not once have I been spoiled (unlike the time my mother called and asked me if I was glad that Hakkinen had won the championship before I'd actually watched the race).

Yes, no spoilers. When you launch it after a race it asks if you want to download that session, then starts it from the beginning. I time-shift most of the races and not once have I been spoiled (unlike the time my mother called and asked me if I was glad that Hakkinen had won the championship before I'd actually watched the race).

I'm a HUGE Formula 1 fan, and I'm literally spending thousands of dollars/pounds (two continents) to go and watch two races this year. However, £19.99 (UK price for this app) is something that I just can't even begin to justify paying for.

20 quid is a tiny amount of money for me, but to ask me to pay this for an app that gives me nothing but free data anyway is just ridiculous.

I would fall over myself to pay £4.99 for this app (about $8) for a season's access, but that's it. £20 for a lifetime membership, I could also justify and would therefore pay. But asking that amount for a single season is just pointless - I'd rather give that money to a good cause instead (and in fact just have).

I know Bernie wants all of our money, but if he charged a quarter of the price for this app, I guarantee he'd have 10 times more purchasers.

Yes, no spoilers. When you launch it after a race it asks if you want to download that session, then starts it from the beginning. I time-shift most of the races and not once have I been spoiled (unlike the time my mother called and asked me if I was glad that Hakkinen had won the championship before I'd actually watched the race).

I'm a HUGE Formula 1 fan, and I'm literally spending thousands of dollars/pounds (two continents) to go and watch two races this year. However, £19.99 (UK price for this app) is something that I just can't even begin to justify paying for.

20 quid is a tiny amount of money for me, but to ask me to pay this for an app that gives me nothing but free data anyway is just ridiculous.

I would fall over myself to pay £4.99 for this app (about $8) for a season's access, but that's it. £20 for a lifetime membership, I could also justify and would therefore pay. But asking that amount for a single season is just pointless - I'd rather give that money to a good cause instead (and in fact just have).

I know Bernie wants all of our money, but if he charged a quarter of the price for this app, I guarantee he'd have 10 times more purchasers.

Scumbag Bernie - always wants more money.

It's sad...one would think some smart decisions would actually be beneficial, such as having a live streaming service that is globally accessible. I'd pay good money for that yesterday.

I know Bernie wants all of our money, but if he charged a quarter of the price for this app, I guarantee he'd have 10 times more purchasers.

Scumbag Bernie - always wants more money.

It's sad...one would think some smart decisions would actually be beneficial, such as having a live streaming service that is globally accessible. I'd pay good money for that yesterday.

Last year the Android live timing app was free and every race was live on the BBC. I don't think Bernie likes me very much.

Yeah, if it came with video, that'd be great but £20 for data that the TV coverage provides anyway is downright nutty. I had the timing app last year but didn't really look at it much because it just distracted me from the on-screen action. Can't imagine paying much just for that.

So, are there any real changes to the app this year, or is the $29 really just to get access to this year's data.

I thought it was pretty useful. The on-track positioning was great for watching a battle that the cameras weren't focusing on, though it is a bit laggy at times. (It's not a true gps, but estimates position based on times between the mid-sector timing points.) Beeing able to see the live timing was great, but I'd like more than 1 decimal place.

The biggest problem was trying to syncronise the data to the start of the race. I wish it had an easy 'jump to lap x' feature - scrubbing along the progress bar was tricky with an ipod touch's small screen.

I agree that giving Bernie more money is a tough sell but I've been looking at this app for the last two years and may just grab it. It's cheaper than paying for the privilege of buying tickets for the US Grand Prix too. Ah shucks I'm still on the fence.

I thought it was pretty useful. The on-track positioning was great for watching a battle that the cameras weren't focusing on, though it is a bit laggy at times. (It's not a true gps, but estimates position based on times between the mid-sector timing points.)

That sucks doesn't it? Can't they just put in a GPS so we can have a better idea of what's happening just like NASCAR does. It sucks when Bernie puts less effort into technology than Nascar.

I bought this app for iOS for the 2011 season but wont be doing so again. It's really a missed opportunity because it adds so little value to the basic data that is freely available. If it showed the cut off time in the qualifying sessions, the changing gap between any two competitors or did any kind of analysis on the developing race, it might help to justify the cost.

It's also a bit sloppy with the UI, does not save your settings and the not infrequent 'network problems' which interrupt the timing feed make it pretty frustrating at times. The track view is nicely drawn but adjusting it makes you wonder if it has a mind of its own and it never saves your preferred view, which is just irritating.

Live commentary can be pithy, highlighting events that you may not have seen, but it's not enough to save this app.

"the Formula 1 (F1) season the most viewed sport on TV after the Olympics"

I have read in many place that The World Cup & soccer generally are the most watched.

Indeed, sloppy stats.

FIFA, the football body, always estimates over 1 billion people watch the World Cup Final, a single game! That is most likely an exaggeration as they have a vested interest. However, independent global sport research and evaluation consultancy Futures Sport + Entertainment state that it is at least in excess of 300 million (320 million in 2006). Furthermore, they are aware they are probably underestimating by a few hundred million as they only count viewers they can be certain of, missing an estimated few hundred million people in Africa, Asia and Latin America that tune in to the final.

Also, a bit of common sense would help. There are more football matches televised per hour in 100+ countries than races in an entire season of Formula One. A race of which only one is held at a time. There will never be a moment in an average week where there will not be a football game on TV somewhere in the world while there are days where there is no Formula One on TV.

It's massively misleading to say this app comes in "two flavours", since the free version doesn't actually contain anything of real value, and simply nags you to buy the paid version. I've downloaded the previous two years' free apps, since they did at least provide the same live timing that was freely available on the F1 website, but they both suffered from frequent network problems (timing freezes, prematurely announcing the race as "complete" even as I was watching it live!) and the 2011 version was barely useable for several races.Bernie Ecclestone seems determined to turn F1 into nothing more than a vulgar worship of money, just like Premiership Football, and I for one can't wait until his whithered, poisonous hand is no longer felt within the sport.

So, are there any real changes to the app this year, or is the $29 really just to get access to this year's data.

I believe this year's version lets you know what tyres people are on and when they're using DRS.

Quote:

The biggest problem was trying to syncronise the data to the start of the race. I wish it had an easy 'jump to lap x' feature - scrubbing along the progress bar was tricky with an ipod touch's small screen.

Skipping through commercial breaks also required a bit of trial and error, but never really when anything majorly exciting was happening.

If I want to watch a race live, chances are, that at around 3-5AM in the morning Pacific Time when most races are run in europe, I'm going to be close to a computing device that support the full version of flash to access SpeedTV's site and don't need to pay $$$ for a mobile app for live timing and scoring.

jellisii wrote:

I'm unsure of what you mean by "racing is not a sport".

Umm, if you haven't realized it by now, all professional racing is "sponsored" entertainment, none of them are a sport. Especially Formula 1, just google "ferrari veto formula 1". (During Schumi's last years with Ferrari, the team was given a veto in F1 for any regulation changes that no other racing team had. No *sport* would ever give one and only one competitor full veto on any rule changes.)

I bought the app in 2010 and 2011. While the app itself works fine and does what it says, I found it to be waste of time and simply stopped using. The problem is not with the app but F1 itself. With the latest changes in the rules, the results are almost identical from week to week. Baring a crash or reliability issue, the cars finish in the same order from season start to finish. I used to actually go to the races when there was a reasonable chance any driver in the first 10 grid positions could actually win.

I have a gigantic nerdy hard on for Formula1 and I think with the talk of CFD, tire compounds, aero changes..this would be perfect fodder for more of a front page stuff. I mean, F1 is (in my not so humble opinion) the sport for nerds. Where else do people like Newey and Pat Fry get the same level of admonition as Alonso and Hamilton? This is a nerdy person sport.

Start putting up articles about how the Sauber nose cone is skirting the rules or how Newey is a god among aerodynamicists men.

Massive disappointment from Formula1.com. Why have they removed their F1 free app they had on the blackberry that they had last season. I don't want to pay a single penny for an F1 app. I installed that free F1 app they had last season but it is telling me I have to login and i do that, but then it says "connection error". Looks like F1 wants to lose it's fan base quickly. !st they are only letting BBC shown half the races live this season while Sky gets to show all the races and now it is charging us to us their mobile apps

I bought the app in 2010 and 2011. While the app itself works fine and does what it says, I found it to be waste of time and simply stopped using. The problem is not with the app but F1 itself. With the latest changes in the rules, the results are almost identical from week to week. Baring a crash or reliability issue, the cars finish in the same order from season start to finish. I used to actually go to the races when there was a reasonable chance any driver in the first 10 grid positions could actually win.

2011 was definitely a bit ho-hum but 2010 was pretty exciting, the last race decided who was champion and there was a choice of 3 or 4 wasn't there? (webber, alonso, vettel, hamilton too (?)).

You posted in March, but if you've been ignoring it, we've had 5 winners from 5 different teams in the first 5 races so far this year ;-) It might turn out to be a classic year - although some are already saying it's too crazy, that they wished the pecking order had been determined by now etc... Just can't please everyone I guess ;-)